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Thousands of veterans bade what is likely to be their final farewell to the
beaches of Normandy today, 70 years after taking part in the largest
seaborne invasion in history and helping to turn the tide of the Second
World War.

Soldiers, sailors and airmen from more than a dozen Allied nations gathered
for a grandiose ceremony at Sword Beach, which was stormed by British troops
on the morning of D-Day, June 6, 1944. For many, given their advanced age,
it will be their last visit to what President Obama called “democracy’s
beachhead”.

“For many of us, we have been

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Frank Gibbins and his wife Betty are applauded by locals on Arromanche beach

June 6 2014 Richard Pohle/The Times

Frank Gibbins and his wife Betty are applauded by locals on Arromanche beach

June 6 2014 Richard Pohle/The Times

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge watch D-day veterans march past at Arromanche

June 6 2014 Richard Pohle/The Times

Allen Gibbons, a D-Day veteran, looks at wreaths before the remembrance service at Bayeux

June 6 2014 Richard Pohle/The Times

The French Republican Guard at the beach of Ouistreham, Normandy

June 6 2014 Damien Meyer/AFP/Getty Images

In vintage British army uniform, former Desert Rat Ken Scott, 98, among the graves after the Bayeux service

June 6 2014 Richard Pohle/Thes Times

Performers take part in a show during the ceremony at Sword Beach

June 6 2014 Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

A D-Day veteran is pushed in his wheelchair into the war graves cemetery

June 6 2014 Richard Pohle/The Times

British warship HMS Bulwark sits off the Normady coastline

June 6 2014 Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

A final tribute to a fallen comrade among the hundreds honoured in the British cemetery